Preparation

Preheat oven to 325°F. and lightly grease 2 large baking sheets.

In a large bowl whisk together flour, salt, baking soda, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter, shortening, and 3 cups sugar until light and fluffy and beat in molasses. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture and combine well.

In a small shallow bowl put remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Form dough into 2-inch balls and roll in sugar. On baking sheets arrange balls about 4 inches apart and flatten slightly with bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.

Bake cookies in batches in middle of the oven 15 minutes, or until puffed and golden. (Cookies should be soft.) Transfer cookies with a metal spatula to racks to cool.

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Reviews

First time trying this recipe. Best ever. Followed to the tee with two exceptions - added Penzy's crystallized sugar bits and cut cooking time two minutes. Saved to my GO-TO recipe favorites. If you are going to have a cookie once in a while...might as well have a great one! Good old Bon Appetit.... I miss that magazine.

The best. I've made them for years, and recently tried different recipe (from Cooks Illustrated). These were so much better -- I'll never make another molasses cookie. These are perfect to bake and send to your kids/nieces/nephews in college --or for anyone else you love. They are flat, soft and chewy, with the slight extra crunch of sugar on the outside. For BIG 4-5" diameter cookies, use a 2" ice cream scoop. For more normal ( 2 1/2 to 3" diameter cookies use a 1" scoop.
This time, I subbed 1 C. white sugar for brown, and also a Tbsp or so more molasses. I always use all butter.

After making these cookies - I wondered if I would EVER make another cookie!
My suggestions:
1) don't squash the cookies with the glass
2) use demarara sugar for rolling
3) use a cool cookie sheet so they don't spread out.

This is the best molasses cookie recipe on Epicurious. Don't be fooled by their "Molasses Crinkles" recipe. it can't compare. This one is the perfect combo of crisp exterior with chewy/moist interior. I could literally eat them a dozen at a time

Great recipe. I didn' have cloves and used all unsalted butter w/o shortening. Very rich, may try as others suggested and cut the amount of sugar. Still excellent as is though. My cookies ended up being massive and I had to cook them for 16 minutes.

Definitely a winner! I've made these about a half dozen times and have found that adding 1 T. of espresso powder deepens and broadens the flavor greatly. They now taste more like my Norwegian grandmother's! As others have , I use 1 C. white and 1 C. brown sugar, 3/4 C. blackstrap molasses, increased the ginger to 2 T. the cloves to 2 t. and the salt to 3/4 t.

This is the recipe that turned me on to epicurious reviews. *Always* read what other cooks have to say before trying the recipe. This is a "four fork" recipe when you cut the sugar in half. Thanks to all who recommended this!

These were great, with a really intense flavor. I had to make them with all whole wheat flour cause that's all I had, but you can't even tell. I cut the sugar like everyone else and made them smaller. I topped them with a simple butter cream frosting like my mother-in-law does to her gingersnaps. And then I ate four of them.

Just made them for my
daughter's "pioneer days" field
trip -- very tasty with the changes
made per other reviewers -- 1 c.
sugar, 1/2 c. dark brown sugar, 1
1/2 Tbsp more molasses. 12 1/2
minutes at 325 worked for me as well
(doing the 2" cookies). I will
definitely make them again -- the
kids (even my very picky eater)
LOVED them! Thanks to other
reviewers for the suggestions!

These are fabulous! Changes I made: 1 cup
whole wheat flour and 3 cups white flour, 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar. I accidentally used 3/4 cup butter
instead of 1 cup when I was substituting butter
for shortening, and they taste great, so I'll
continue using 3/4c butter for the butter +
shortening. I can't imagine these with more than
1.5 cups of sugar. These are just lovely, large,
puffy, chewy, cracked topped cookies, just like
you'd get in a bakery. With my convection oven I
baked for 12.5 minutes.

I made the cookies using the suggestions of other reviewers: decreased the sugar by 1 cup and used 1/2 brown sugar, extra molasses and shorter cooking time for smaller cookies. They are great! My two year old loves them, and I get to slip in a little extra iron in the form of a treat.

This is the molasses
cookie I've been
looking for. Great
spice as written,
and perfectly soft
and chewy! We make
them smaller than
called for, and
cooking time is only
8 min as a result.
I do add another
tablespoon or two of
molasses, and only
use 1 c white sugar
and 1/2 c brown
sugar. They would
be insanely sweet
with three c sugar,
so thank you other
reviewers!

I too followed the suggestions of others and only used 1 1/2 cups of sugar (1 cup white sugar & and 1/2 dark brown sugar). In addition I only used unsalted butter (a preference thing for me) and they turned out perfect. I baked the for approximately 10 minutes and they looked like perfect flat gingersnaps!

I added 1 cups pecans to this.
Based on the yield, I was making my cookies too small (1" rounds I guess) instead the enormous 2" rounds I made later.
I didn't quite get the cracked on top, moist chewy in middle that I was trying to recreate. The first 1" batch were almost underdone. THe second 1" batch was too overdone. The 2" batch had that cracked look on top but fell very flat upon being put on racks.

I also only used a little over 1 1/2 cups of sugar and I thought they were perfect... they were rich, chewy, spicy, and cracked beautifully on top. I added a tough more ginger, but I was really pleasantly surprised by the amount of cloves called for because sometimes recipes can be wimps about it. With the alteration in the sugar, this is my new go-to molasses cookie recipe.

Spectacular recipe! Made it many times. It's important not to cook these too long, but it's tough to tell when the cookies are done sice they are already brown. Basically, know your oven well and trust the recommended bake time.

Oh. MY. God. These cookies are what we have
been looking for. They are chewy, spicy and just
sweet enough. I followed the suggestions from
"tishaslyon from Denver" and I am so happy I
did. The cookies would have been waaaay too
sweet otherwise. I did add 1/2 tsp. of freshly
grated ginger to the sugars. I ran out of white
sugar so I used 1/2 c white, 1/2 c raw and 1/2
cup dark brown. It was a very lucky accident to
use the raw sugar on the outside. It gives them
a nice texture. I found our magic baking time
to be 12 and 1/2 minutes. My husband loved
these so much he did a little dance around the
kitchen.